Culture of Diversity
Everyone has their own way of life. If a great many people have similar lifestyles, we speak of a culture of living. People agree that this is a good and right life culture. Some people find obstacles in this way of life. Because they're different from the others, they're autistic. This means that they do not find this way of life good and correct everywhere. These obstacles are called barriers.
For example, if people's way of life is very loud, this volume can be like a wall of noise. When an autistic child enters a day-care centre or school, it can be very bad and terrible for this child. It's not just in the sense that the child would just say it. This is a really bad and terrible thing. And the child does well to retreat here.
For example, too much noise can make the autistic child very ill. Or it'll make the child dizzy. Or suddenly it can't speak or move. Sometimes it can no longer think properly. But most of the time it's not just the noise. That can also be the far too many children in too small a space. Or too many adults who want something from them all the time. Missing retreats. Or even a daily schedule that does not fit the child's needs at all. A daily plan of the flash lamps contains. And buzzing devices in the rooms. Then heat on playgrounds without shadows and dazzling sun. Maybe even constant redecoration. And so the autistic child can never know what to expect next in terms of barrier.[12][8][10] Adults and other children often don't know what's going on. Non-autists are often unable to perceive the sounds and other things because they are completely different.
Neurodiversity
Autistic people are people who have a different neuro-biology, we are talking about diversity in being.[5] Autistic people are therefore very different from most people. They develop very differently to allistic children. Autistic children are born as such and they are autistic for a lifetime. Just as allistics are non-autists for a lifetime. It concerns this different development in biology quite many different aspects of being. Autism causes a characteristic, atypical way of thinking. Also the way of movement is very different. Or even when dealing with other people. And as described above, also in the design of life culture. Autism as a name for a certain development therefore only takes as long as the Universal Design is created.[6] In a culture of diversity, it is not a problem to be different.[7]
Encouragement
Children of (pre)school age receive comprehensive encouragement. You are welcome to explore our concepts. You will find an overview of our methods and procedures in the main menu in the column above, as well as the submenu items in the column on the left.
Peer support
Some adult autistic people have found ways to live the way they need to. They know exactly what they find good and right. They have designed their environment accordingly. This knowledge can be passed on to young people. Thus it becomes clear which life culture can be beneficial for adolescent autistic people. This kind of peer support for autistic children is very important in the promotion. The co-team is therefore always formed by a teacher and a peer support speaker.
Prudence
It is particularly important that autistic people learn what is good and right for them and what is bad and terrible. To do this, they need a certain mindfulness in dealing with themselves and life. When the children are young prudence is helpful. If the children are still small it helps to get prudence by the accompanying adults by the role as role models experiencable. The small children communicate very early what is good for them and what is bad for them. If the child expresses discomfort, it must be taken seriously. And the cause must be found out, these must be recognized with much attention and solutions must be found. In this way, the child learns from the adults where barriers exist. From a certain age the children can then also take care of themselves. Barriers are to be avoided whenever this corresponds to the will of the child. It is to respect the will of the child at all costs. Otherwise it gets stressful and ends badly and terribly. Barriers must always be avoided and the will of the child must be respected. Otherwise it becomes dangerous for the welfare of the child, stressful and ends badly and terribly. Since this is not easy for everyone, we issue an extra warning about the dangers for the welfare of the child on another page (see link) of our website.
Healthy Distance
Daycare centres and schools, apartments and entire residential areas as well as cities around the world are designed according to a certain lifestyle. Just right for the majority, the allistics. Sometimes very bad and terrible for autistic children and adolescents. Without this healthy distance people confuse their own with strangers, let themselves be influenced by others, lose the connection to themselves, to their own free will and needs, they become dependent. Without a healthy distance the autistic children do not have the possibility to get to know their way of being and to learn how to integrate this way of being into a self-determined life.
For example: Autistic people often say that they like being there, they don't find it annoying. Many autistic children feel much better in nature. Be at peace. Or even for hours on end, some people like to spend time with something. This is good and important for them to do. Interrupting her would be bad for her. Some are also very happy with something loud on their own, like a drum set. If noise is self-made, it can be regulated and thus be calculated and assessed. One is not helplessly at the mercy of this.
Learning
Sometimes it is not yet quite so perfect and easy to implement what is needed to make it good and right. Especially in places like a school. But with tools such as those mentioned above, one is not completely helpless here. Telepresence, distance learning material and an assistance dog can be of great service here. It is important for the autistic children that they can learn and know what their own way of learning is. In this way, all children can experience participation in education. Also so that the adolescents can develop their abilities and talents, which they discover in the self-determined way of life. This is an important feature of the promotion according to the principle of diversity, neurodiversity.[11]
Communication
When the individual way of communication of autistic children is taken into account in the culture of life, they do better. Only if they discover their own way of expressing themselves they can develop it. It is therefore imperative to promote the acceptance of the adolescent as such. Not all autistic children speak. But they all communicate. There is no autistic child who does not communicate. But the environment must make the effort to understand the children. Your children in the family. Or the children to accompany in day care and school. Also, an autistic person who does not speak must be welcomed at a university like everyone else. This language without speaking is called non-verbal communication. Since there are people who do not know how to understand this, this can be communicated to families, teachers and educators, for example, by playing figures.
Legal basis
Autistic children are currently exposed to a culture of life in which these names "autistic" and "autism" are needed for certain rights to take effect. This gives them the right to be everywhere, just as they need to be. For example due to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Basic Law, the Federal Participation Act and other legal bases.[1][2][13] It's their right to be there, just as they are. And all this without classical or operant conditioning that teaches them to behave like everyone else does. This was done for a long time, one assumed it would be about functionality as a "normal person". However, it was and would not be healthy for long-term development. Because the barriers are real to them. And it's not healthy for autistic children to be exposed to them.
The Federal Participation Act enters into force in Germany in 2020. It describes exactly what rights the autistic children have. For example, that barriers must be dismantled. That's the law then. Then the children will no longer have to go to special institutions and homes. The autistic children can then participate everywhere. Just like it's already been with other kids. For almost all other children, it is already everyday life to live at home with their parents or to receive a school-leaving certificate.
Something must be done in day-care centres, schools and universities, as stated in this document called the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which Germany has also signed. Possibilities, transitional solutions and the joint development of this "universal design" are needed. Everyone should be able to participate in it, to whom barriers make some areas of the life culture inaccessible at present. It does not only apply to autistic people. It also applies to the blind, children in wheelchairs, the deaf and many others who need unhindered access to education. The aim is to be able to go to the nearest day care centre exactly where you live. Or in school or university - just like everyone else who does not encounter any obstructive circumstances, the barriers in the social environment.
And if this does not happen so quickly, because the barriers are all still there at the moment, aids must form a bridge. With an assistance dog barriers can become adjustable. For example in a suburban train the dog can lie on the side of the child, so that nobody comes too close to him. Telepresence allows to connect to the classroom from home. Distance learning material can be made available if the school does not know how to break down barriers.
The White Unicorn e.V. is there to implement this. The Berlin Senate Department for Education, Youth and Family has commissioned our sponsor to take care of this. Our area is called child-welfare, as we specialize primarily in autistic children from birth until the age of 21. As such a assosiation of child-welfare it is very difficult on its own. Therefore White Unicorn e.V. has chosen a corporate partner and is now connected with the Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO) in this way. The law in which the government registered the regulations for this type of work is called the "Eighth Book of the Social Law - Child-Welfare - (SGB VIII)". In § 75 it says something about such organisations as White Unicorn e.V. or the AWO. In §35a) [4] it is written how this can happen, what has to be considered in this work. Work is continued on creating the environment until even the autistic children find this good and right and no longer bad and terrible.
Other paragraphs like SGBVIII§30/31 to help families very intensively with problems, or a therapy for family systems according to §27 we do not (yet) offer at the moment. Even though we have that in our statutes. This can also be located in the support concept, but at the moment this is only one possibility for the future. We ask for your understanding that we cannot offer this at the moment. We also help to find suitable other organisations in an advisory function, if this is possible for us.
Bibiliography
1. UN-Behindertenrechtskonvention
2. GRUNGESETZ
3. UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS
4. Sozialgesetzbuch Achtes Buch Kinder- und Jugendhilfe, § 35a
5. THEUNISSEN 2014, S. 16
6. NICK WALKER 2015, Die wirklichen Experten
7. COLIN MÜLLER, Autismus Kultur Was Autismus ist und was nicht
8. ESH, Kollision
9. UN BRK - Stand 26.10.2016
10. What is Neurodiversity?. National Symposium on Neurodiversity at Syracuse University. 2011.
11. Nick Walker: Julia Bascom (Hrsg.): Loud Hands: Autistic People, Speaking. The Autistic Press, Washington, DC 2012
12. Markrams: Markram, K. & H. (2010): The Intense World Syndrome - a unifying theory if the neurobiology of autism, in: Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
13. Europäische Menschenrechtskonvention (EMK)
14. Autism as a Natural Human Variation: Reflections on the Claims of the Neurodiversity Movement. Linköping University, 2014